GEORGE HENRY DAVIS

George Davis graduated from Lincoln College with a B.Ag.Sc. in 1969 and M.Agr.Sc. (Hons) in 1971. Upon graduating, he was employed as a Scientist by MAF, and then by its successor, AgResearch, except for a period from 1976-1978 when he directed a beef research and development farm in South Korea. George's first position with MAF was as Officer-in-Charge of Tara Hills High Country Research Station. Since 1973, apart from his Korean experience, George has been located at Invermay, near Dunedin. Throughout his career, George has been close to the land, and taken a keen interest in the observations of ram breeders involved in performance recording, most notably, in relation to the genetic control and segregation of ovulation rates. He has also worked with beef cattle and alpacas.

George was one of the pioneering researchers involved in the characterisation of prolificacy and ovulation rates in the Booroola Merino. George discovered the Inverdale X-linked fecundity gene after noticing the segregation that occurred in offspring from designed matings. He spread his net more widely in the search for prolificacy genes and went on to discover the Woodlands gene. He wrote the first refereed papers published on the latter two of these genes. Since 2000, he collaborated with Dr Hanrahan in Ireland in the discovery of prolificacy genes in the Belclare and Cambridge breeds and discovered an autosomal prolificacy gene in Romney sheep known as the Wishart. Not only was George at the forefront of the first discovery of a prolificacy gene in sheep more than two decades ago, he has been the champion of all the subsequent discoveries, working alongside a team of national and international colleagues with more molecular and statistical interests.

George has published over 220 papers on sheep, cattle and alpaca breeding and production. George received the McMeekan memorial award from the New Zealand Society of Animal Production (NZSAP) in 1994. That year, the NZSAP published a book titled Lab Coats to Gumboots, to which George was a contributor and editor, and showed some of the human side of science as it described the manner of a number of New Zealand breakthroughs in agricultural science.

George received a DSc from Otago University in 2001, for his work associated with the remarkable discovery and characterization of the Inverdale and Woodlands genes. In 2003, Dr Davis was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand for his work in discovering genes for reproduction, elucidating their physiological action and mapping them at the molecular level. It is recognized that this work is not only of value to the sheep industry, but also as a model in reproductive medicine and biological sciences.

Recently, Dr Davis has been expanding his research to major genes affecting reproduction other than through ovulation rate, and in seeking origins for the Booroola gene. His work traced the mutation to the Garole and Javanese breeds in India and Indonesia respectively. Characterisation of another 21 prolific breeds has uncovered evidence of the gene in the Hu and Han breeds in China. Collectively, these endeavours suggest a migration of the gene from India, through Indonesia, into Australia and then New Zealand.